Thursday, April 9, 2009

May Cause Blindness - 4/9 session recap

Despite last week's decision to charge forward, the party decided to take a 5-minute breather on the stairs of the temple. Healing surges were spent, and encounter powers regained. Then they traipsed back to the fight.

The hobgoblins were arrayed in a line formation, shields interlocked. Kylian ran in and proceeded to duel a single hobgoblin for the entire battle. Thoric blasted his enemies with beauty and granted Kylian some spare hit points. Ander ran in and blinded several of them with a barrage of shuriken, and Xakoraki followed in order to take up a defensive position in the corner. Boreas used his new Spectral Ram spell to blast an enemy out of formation. Then things got serious.

Two bugbears joined the fray from behind pillars in the room, but something was not right about them. Each wielded a mace in one arm. The other arm was a mass of long tentacles. One grappled Ander from a distance, and the other failed to grab Boreas. Boreas retreated to a safe firing distance at that point, but everyone else remained locked in melee combat.

Ander was able to break free from the tentacle, but later Xakoraki was squeezed by a successful grabbing attack. Combat continued for a few rounds, and blows were exchanged. As the first hobgoblin fell, the rest became more determined. They used more powerful moves, which brought Kylian almost to his knees. Thoric healed him fully with the radiance of Linitheriva, however.

Xakoraki was not as lucky. She stepped forward to finish off a hobgoblin, and the two at her back bludgeoned her into unconsciousness. Ander knocked one of her attackers unconscious with the hilt of his short sword, but its tentacles continued to writhe. Boreas blasted it with spell, and it expired.

Kylian was victorious in his duel, and the other bugbear was brought down by Thoric's warhammer. The remaining hobgoblin fled deeper into the dungeon while Thoric stabilized Xakoraki. Kylian then healed her by laying on hands.

The party then backtracked to one of two side corridors that they had passed on the way. It was a short hallway with a small room at the end. Upon seeing chests in the room, Xakoraki, Ander, and Boreas moved into the room to check for traps while Kylian and Thoric stood in the hallway. Unfortunately, the trap was triggered by the floor surrounding the chests. There was a click, and a low rumbling sound that ran along the ceiling of the hallway. Thoric and Kylian looked up reflexively, and caught a dusting of fine powder on their upturned faces. Their eyes and noses started to burn, but after a while it subsided to a dull sting and ache. The chests were not trapped, and contained 2500 gold pieces plus two healing potions.

Thoric performed some medical diagnosis, and determined that he and Kylian were diseased. If they were unable to shake off the infection, they would become permanently blinded, perhaps only in a few days.

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